


Once, A Glimpse

by Clarice Chiara Sorcha (claricechiarasorcha)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ben is a brat, Ben is seventeen and Armitage is twenty-one, Boys With Toys, M/M, benarmie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 13:17:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12458586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claricechiarasorcha/pseuds/Clarice%20Chiara%20Sorcha
Summary: From childhood, Ben has always had a thing for mechanical creations.Now, he also has a thing for mechanicalcreators.





	Once, A Glimpse

**Author's Note:**

> ...I had the urge to write some benarmie nonsense, and this is what happened. Heads up; canonically there's a four to five year age gap between Hux and Kylo, so obviously that's more in play here given Ben is a seventeen year old brat.

Even though he’d had the entire walk down from the house to consider what he would say, and how he might best say it, the moment Ben saw him again: all of it vanished. In the mid-day sunshine the man’s hair gleamed like a crown of flame and ember; bent forward over the speeder, the lines of his body seemed smooth and endless.

There, at the end of the path, before the hangar that served as both workshop and the house’s vehicle storage, Ben stayed far too still for far too long. Though he let out an explosive breath, never once did the man turn around, nor did he look to where Ben stood mesmerised.

“Is there something I can do for you?” The voice had a strange mixed quality – the sharpness of the old Imperials, but the strong lilt of an Arkanian native. “Don’t answer that, I already know there isn’t.”

When Ben cleared his throat, there came an embarrassing croaking sound not unlike some manner of amphibious swamp creature being choked of all breath. Still, he tried again. He hadn’t come this far to run away now.

“I’m Ben.”

“Yes, I know.”

And still, he did not look up. Ben pressed his lips together, but it didn’t stop the words escaping. “And you’re Armie.”

“ _Armitage_.” Even now his attention remained firmly fixed on the disembowelled machine before him, though he had begun to lever a large component back into its cradle. “But I prefer Hux, all the same.”

Something in that name shivered across his skin, a lightning strike both unseen and unheard. “I didn’t know that.”

With a snort he began piecing the last of the engine back together, hands quick and lithe about their work. “I’ve gathered the impression there’s rather a few things you don’t know, young master Solo.” Despite the fact his face remained turned mostly away, Ben caught the sharp edge of his grin. “And this is the first time we’ve even met.”

“But you’ve heard of me.”

A twist of his lip, and the grin became something else entire. “And you’ve obviously heard of me, though I shudder to think of what was said.” Long fingers, oddly clean, twisted around a small metal head; his wrist began to move, bare and lovely in the morning light. “You should go back up to the house. I suspect your mother’s looking for you.”

His own lips pursed, tight and petulant. “She doesn’t care what I do.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t the truth.”

“Well, that’s why I _am_ here!” The words had been too quick, too short. Such flashes of temper were hardly unusual for him, though Ben usually reserved them only for family, and not for strangers. Even as regret washed through him Armitage looked up at last, eyes dark blue: and then, as he turned more to the light, they became something far closer to a deep canopic green.

“Then tell me, Ben Solo,” he said, indolent in tone even as his body remained watchful and stiff, “why _are_ you here?”

His mouth worked, struggled to find the words. “You’re a genius.”

One pale eyebrow arched. “That’s a mere fact, not a reason.”

And there were so _many_ reasons, though not a one of the sensible ones came at all to mind, not then. “I’m a better pilot than Poe.” It almost felt to have blurted itself out, crazed strange joy. “So you should let me fly her.”

He crossed his arms over the narrow chest, understanding carving cynical lines across his high-boned features. “Ah,” he mused, though his eyes said any consideration therein was only for show. “But then, I didn’t design her for a child.” The smirk twisted wider. “And I certainly didn’t design her for _you_.”

It might have hurt, if Ben hadn’t long ago become accustomed to the truth being always the worst part of his existence. “That doesn’t matter,” he said, so easy in his stubbornness. “I can fly anything.”

“But you can’t fly my ship.” The smile he wore then seemed almost pitying, though those strange blue-green eyes said otherwise. “It’s not negotiable.”

“But you haven’t even let me _try_!”

“I don’t have to.” Already he turned away, turned back to the engine and where it had almost been pieced back together. “Go on, go back up to the house. Even if your mother never taught you any manners, I’m sure mine could.”

“Well, she obviously didn’t do a good job with _you_.”

For the briefest of seconds, he paused. Ben expected him to carry on with his work, but he braced one hand upon the alusteel, turned back. “On the contrary,” he said, dangerously conversational, “she taught me _exactly_ how to deal with over-privileged spoiled little brats like you.”

“And how’s that?” This time there came no words. Armitage’s back proved long and lightly muscled, when bent forward again; even when Ben’s voice rose alarmingly close to a whine, it garnered no response. “What, are you just _ignoring_ me now?”

The man simply continued about his work. Pressing his lips tight together, Ben clenched his hands about his upper arms, drew his elbows close to his sides, and simply watched. It wasn’t the retrofitted and redesigned X-Wing sitting in the hangar back at Scaparus Port – this was just a speeder, though even then that hardly spoke to the obvious skill and creativity of the man working over it.

And he was such a strange man. Though very thin, Armitage Hux moved with a control and grace that Ben, with his overlong and lanky limbs, had to envy. The jumpsuit he wore seemed almost painfully ordinary, considering the reputation he had already built up amongst even older and more experienced engineers throughout both the Core and the Rim. But he’d left the top half dangling around his waist, the white short-sleeved shirt not quite baggy enough to mask the lean torso beneath.

And he worked on as if Ben simply did not exist to him. Again, it couldn’t be called an entirely new sensation; whether he was lurking in the shadows of some senatorial celebration, or desperately trying to remain beneath the sightline of less congenial colleagues to his father in some lowbrow cantina, Ben had become accustomed to it as a young child.

But then, there had always a sense of hiding, of not wanting to be seen, of trying to be beneath the notice of those around him. This, instead, had become very nearly pleasant. Certainly he found it pleasurable; it gave him opportunity a closer look at the man he’d known only through short holos and news articles, and from the secondhand stories of others who knew him personally. Despite the fact Armitage now chose to shut him out entirely, there was _something_ worth the having in this moment – and it was something that belonged to Ben, and Ben alone.

Having fallen to almost a meditative state, Ben had no real sense of how much time had passed; he only realised how close the end had come when Armitage began to pack away the tools, though the innards of the speeder were left still exposed. He had proved nothing if not a neat worker, methodical but very quick. Ben, too, had an innate skill with mechanics, but could already see it was very different to Armitage’s. His own abilities, chaotic and lightning-quick, were luck as much as actual experience. Armitage knew precisely what he did, and why.

“It’s a nice day,” he said, sudden, the growing lump in his throat like molten rock. Armitage shook his head, slotting the last of his wrenches back into their proper places.

“Yes, well, it’s Arkanis. I wouldn’t get used to it.” The light limned his profile in gold when he glanced up to the sky, generous lips curved down. “Why are you still here?”

“I guess I didn’t want to meet your mother that much.”

With a snort he looked down, again, and latched the box shut. “I’m sure she’ll be broken-hearted.”

He’d always been too quick with the assholery; if there was one talent he’d undoubtedly inherited from his father, his runaway tongue was it. “She wouldn’t be the first.”

Unmoved, or so it appeared, Hux stowed the toolkit inside the opened cockpit. “I thought the Jedi weren’t supposed to lie.”

“I’m not a Jedi.” The words came too quick, stumbling and higher-pitched than they had any real need to be. “My uncle is teaching me balance. To be one, between the dark and the light.”

“How fascinating.” The dry flatness of the reply had Ben tightening his lips, somewhere on the edge of frustration and misery. Armitage paid him no heed, instead pushing the hood down. Then, a forearm passed over his forehead, though Ben could hardly see any sheen of sweat there. Just pale pale skin, and the faintest hint of freckles beneath.

A split second decision could be so easily made. Stepping forward, Ben moved to the still-opened cockpit, and braced his hands on the side of the speeder. The motion was not precisely a jump – something like a shift in the Force, the tilt of an unseen hand. Either way, it had him dropping neatly down into the pilot’s seat; his heart felt to have gained two sizes when he turned to grin over at Armitage, now standing very still at the speeder’s side.

“Get out of that.”

The grin grew wider, more lopsided than even the usual. “Make me.”

The thinning of his lips was at first his own reply. For a moment, Ben knew only the blunt hard trauma of disappointment; it seemed inevitable that Armitage would just turn his back, would simply walk away.

The swift spin came unexpected, Armitage vaulting upward and over the side; one slender arm crossed over his neck, the other locking into his elbow. Pulled back, Ben found his spine arched the wrong way over the chair. It had been a soldier’s manoeuvre, though Armitage Hux had been taken from Imperial influence at an impossibly young age. But then, as the son of a major high in the special operations unit of the New Republic Army, perhaps it was hardly remarkable – to feel such strength, to know his skill.

And Ben revelled in the feeling, in the white flashes of light that popped in his peripheral vision, even as it then began to turn grey around its rounded edges. He had never piloted this precise type of speeder: an Arkanisian special, decades out of fashion but a solid base design. It was easy to see how it would appeal to one such as Armitage, renowned for taking the very best of old technology and marrying it perfectly to the new.

Shifting his perceptions proved no great task, nor did deciding how best to fly this ship using only by the Force itself. He hadn’t lied: flying was in his blood as much as the Force itself. As the speeder began to smoothly lift and turn, Armitage released a barrage of curses. Ben smiled, even as the grip about his throat pushed bruising-hard. And then, he pushed a thought straight into Armitage’s wide-open mind.

He let go as if electrocuted, falling back into the seat behind him. It was so easy, then, to reach forward; oxygen deprived and heady with it, Ben rested one hand upon the steering column even as the other yanked the throttle back. Armitage’s newly refurbished speeder pointed skyward, arcing out of the estate and upward – and then, beyond.

Ben left the top down. He’d always enjoyed the feel of the wind in his hair. It still wasn’t as long as he might have liked it to be, but at least his uncle had stopped badgering him to keep it as short as it had been in childhood. He had too many memories to contend with: of teasing words, of his ears burning red with shame where they poked out from beneath the dark curls.

A body dropped down in the seat beside him. One hand slammed on the dashboard, and the transparisteel top began to close over, wind disappearing behind a veil of sudden sharp quiet. Ben had already careened them out of the main air traffic area, the proximity beacon deathly silent. Sparing a glance sideways, Ben found only quiet cold fury.

“I could put a knife to your throat.” He said this in a tone perfectly conversational, and though his hands were empty Ben could well imagine them curled about a weapon. “The only reason I don’t is because I imagine your mother would possibly prefer to be the one to strangle you with her own bare hands.”

And in turn, Ben only wanted to laugh and laugh and laugh. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this light. “Why do you say that?”

“I can only imagine that raising you was perfect hell.” Now he leaned back in the seat, breathed in deeply through his nose. “What do you even suppose you are _doing_?”

“Showing you how well I can fly.”

But Armitage’s eyes were on him – not on the scenery whipping past, or the way his hands moved knowingly over unfamiliar controls. “This is a _speeder_ , Ben. It shows me nothing of how you’d fly a starfighter.”

It had always been almost too easy, to give himself over to the Force this way. It was something similar to the way the Force flowed through the kyber of a lightsaber, but different enough. That made the saber feel as though it were an extension of himself, another part of his own body. In this moment, the speeder was no such thing. Ben _was_ the speeder, but then: he was everything around it, too. The wind, the air, the land that twisted and turned beneath him as the vehicle moved in motions and manoeuvres it never would be able to perform with a lesser pilot.

The only thing separate and strange was _him_ : the bright aura of crimson and gold at his side, silent and stoic, those bright eyes fixed upon Ben alone.

They’d strayed far from Scaparus; when Ben brought the speeder down for a landing, there was little else around but an endless sea of forest, sulking mountains cutting jagged lines across the blurred horizon. Releasing the superfluous controls, Ben turned to his side with a grin. “See what I mean?”

Bare hands fisted in his collar, hauling him close. The fury of him, so close, burned so bright – and so _beautiful_.

“I should have you put down like the rabid animal you are,” he hissed, and Ben surged forward, lips pressed violently together. A pause, and: Armitage pressed back, nails dragging over his throat even as the fingers curled the collar tighter, kiss forceful and unforgiving. Then he shoved him away, Ben gasping at the dig of some lever into the small of his back. Armitage only stared, eyes now so very dark they seemed as the heart of a collapsed neutron star.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Dizzied, delighted, Ben could speak only the truth as he knew it to be. “I thought maybe I just wanted your ship,” he said, breathless and laughing, “but I want _you_ , too.”

The grimace twisted his face into something peaked and furious, but Armitage never once looked away. “Get out of my speeder.” He spoke clipped, commanding. “You can walk back.”

And Ben laughed again, knowing the sound of it to be too harsh and too happy. “I just proved that I’m a better pilot than Poe,” he said, and pushed forward, crowding Armitage against his own seat. “I bet you a go-round of your starfighter that I’m a better fuck, too.”

Even beneath Ben’s broader weight, Armitage seemed unafraid. But all the same he’d turned wide-eyed, disbelieving. “ _What_.”

“Are you scared, or something?”

It was a foolish question, given his own heart thundered so hard he could hear it all around them both – and then Ben realised it was only the near-perpetual rain, returned at last, lashing the canopy of transparisteel over their heads. Beneath him, Armitage leaned back, too quiet as he tilted his head in contemplative silence. In the changing light, his face became as a chiaroscuro mask of light and shadow; his eyes seemed now darker than even Ben’s own.

“Hmm,” he said, and only that. One hand shot forward, bridging between; a frown curved his lips as he placed it against the flat of Ben’s trousers. With eyebrows drawn together he pushed back even as he leaned forward. Only when Ben sat upright again did Armitage shove the tunic aside, unlacing the flies before he drew the cock out from beneath.

Then he looked up, almost accusing. “What in the pfassking hell do you call _this_ ridiculous thing?”

The touch of bare skin against his own pulled a strangled gasp, as if those lovely hands had instead closed about his spasming throat. With fresh narrowing of eyes, Armitage held Ben’s gaze as he worked his hand up, down, up again; there, one thumb pressed in gentle swipe over the leaking head.

A gasp, and the world disappeared in a throbbing agony of white-out pleasure; his dick released with great sudden gouts, his whole body in fierce tremor. Armitage jerked back with a faint cry of disgust, but not quick enough – and there had hardly been any room for the manoeuvre besides. When Ben forced clenched eyelids open, even his vision wasn’t blurred enough to erase the evidence: thick whiteness, laid out in broken trails all over Armitage’s once pristine shirt.

“I…” Even in the weak-boned glory of release, horror still shifted through him with electric panic. “…I’m sorry.”

The eyes slipped closed, and a deep breath was taken. Then, he opened them, lips pursed to white thinness. “Well,” he said, almost gentle. “At least I don’t have to give you that go-round in my starfighter,” he continued, before adding with easy mockery, “because I can promise you that Poe Dameron does indeed last longer than a drooling virgin.”

He tried to straighten his slouch, failed miserably. “But we only just started!”

Pushing some of that blazing red hair back behind one ear, he spoke dry as desert dust. “I’d noticed.”

“But I can still…” Something like a sneer upon Armitage’s face had the words failing. His eyes already prickled with salt and shame – but a snarl burst forward from between his lips. Wide hands moved forward, landed bruise-hard on the waist beneath the jumpsuit; with the Force, it wrenched open at the level of his hips. Before Armitage could say a word, Ben thrust his lips upon his basics there, clean and white and scented faintly of some Arkanisian water-bloom. Beneath the material, his dick was more than half-hard; it twitched with considerable interest, even as Armitage flicked one ear with stinging preciseness.

Ben didn’t stop. And Armitage didn’t do it again. When he looked up instead, eyes already leaking, he spoke with unexpected defiance. “You want me to stop?”

For once, Armitage had no quick sharp answer. He just kept looking down, and now there _was_ sweat dotted on his forehead, hair damp at the temples. The arch of transparisteel had begun to fog up, the rain still hard and without rhythm over their heads.

And suddenly he smirked, impossible sun beneath the thick cloud cover above. “Do it, you absolute _child_.”

“Kinky,” he muttered, but before Armitage could say anything else, Ben pulled the material away. Armitage’s cock sprung free from a nest of neatly-trimmed hair, dark and rich in its ruddy colour. The head had been neatly cut of the foreskin; Ben didn’t think too hard as to when or why, and just pushed down to swallow him whole.

Without the Force he would have choked, given the way Armitage’s hips snapped up and drove the slim length down deep. As it was, Ben barely kept his teeth masked, as he’d read was priority number one on all the Holonet advice forums. But those reams of written words, and even the education of thousands of vids – nothing of that could compare to the real thing, hot and leaking between his lips, pressing hard against the back of his throat.

It was too much, Armitage already finding his own rhythm of thrust and pause, heedless of Ben himself. But he could take it. With his hands on those bare, slim hips beneath the jumpsuit, he felt again to be flying; then, he shifted them back to feel his ass, all deceptive soft curve. Ben could feel his own arousal, desperate to return but not quite managing. Flattening his tongue beneath the length again deep in his mouth, the tip brushed up against coarse, wiry hair. The scent of him here, clean and musky both, was nothing if not two sides of the same coin.

Armitage came sudden, without warning; choking, eyes streaming, Ben held his place. It was Armitage who pulled back, face reddened and hair a ruin. In turn Ben bent over forward, dribbling from his mouth with saliva and semen both; he tried to catch it in his hands, failed miserably.

“Well,” Armitage said, anger quite ruined by his breathlessness, “you owe me for the upholstery.” And then, a snort, and he added, “Take this, already.”

Material, thrust into his face – the shirt, stained with his own release. The jolt of thought hit him hard, down in his own aching dick: the knowledge that so close, Armitage sat shirtless, his own cock likely still hanging out of his pants. A low moan escaped, and Armitage sighed, sight still unseen.

“How old _are_ you?”

A lie would be easy. But easier still would be Armitage locating the truth; there was only one Ben Solo-Organa in the universe, after all. “Seventeen.” The short muffled, his stomach still churning, breath tight in a taut chest. He heard the stifled curse all the same. What followed was the sound of Armitage rising, voice redirected as he turned and moved towards the back of the small cabin.

“You’re an idiot.”

“You wouldn’t be the first to say.”

With face still covered, he felt rather than saw Armitage’s return. The poking at his lips made him frown; he turned his head just a little, and found a flexible straw. When he pulled on it, cool water moved through the bitterness in his mouth, the bruised heat of his throat. Ben wanted to open his eyes, his cock still rock-hard, dizzied by the scent and taste of Armitage.

“Stay down, for a second.” When he shifted, he clicked his tongue in clear disgust. “That means _don’t move_.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

A hand came down, rested light over his cock. Then, as it tightened, Armitage spoke in low warning sing-song. “Say that again.”

He didn’t. The moan was reason enough; that strong, slim hand closed around him, jacked him in swift sharp motion. He lasted longer this time, he thought, but Ben knew it wasn’t much. And in the end he gave over to the wash of pleasure, of the following peace: lulled into drowsing calm by the soft staccato rain against the transparisteel, and the pale grey hue of the light beyond.

When he woke, Ben found himself alone. A sudden surge of panic had him sitting up straight, and he would have bonked his head on the roof had it not been open. There, sitting very still, he tamped it back down, forced his breathing from ragged to slow. That much control, at least, he had learned with Luke’s careful tutelage.

But his trousers still hung open, his tunic disordered. He did not move until he had put himself back into some order; only then did he lever himself upward, legs over the side, lowering himself down to the grass beneath the landing gear.

Armitage had not gone far. He lingered in front of the speeder, sitting still and silent upon the bulk of the toolkit. His shirt, damp but clean, hung over the nose of the speeder; his hair curled damp and dripping about the base of his neck, jumpsuit tied around his waist, again. From the light sheen over his bared skin, he had all but showered in the rain. And Ben’s heart, already beating too hard and too fast, skipped at least three beats when Armitage raised a hand, the flicker of his cigarra warm against his profile in the dying light.

Then, he glanced back. Somewhere, in the distance, a bird sang sharp frank melody; another returned the harmony, low and pulsing. “Well?”

Again, the words escaped any and all control. “Can I see your ass?”

“What?” he asked, frowning. And Ben hung his head, shaking it all the way down.

“I…” He coughed, didn’t look up. “I didn’t think. Sorry.”

He moved so silently; not even the Force warned Ben of his approach, unknown until his empty hand closed about his chin, forcing it upward. “But are you, really?” Armitage asked, eyes so very dark, a night sky entirely without stars. And the honesty came so easy, again.

“No.”

A sigh, and he stepped back. Producing a small cigarra case from an inside pocket, he flicked it open; there, he jabbed the current one out, closed it, put it away again. Reaching for the shirt, he pulled it over his head, grimacing; damp, it clung to the lines of his body, and the erect nipples beneath.

“My face, Ben.” There might have been some amusement, there. “It’s difficult for you, I know.”

And he glanced up, could not stop the grin. “It’s all right. I like your face, too, you know.”

Shaking his head, he seemed more tired than irritated now. “We need to go back.”

“Do we?”

A frown marred his features, again. “What, do you want to stay out here forever?”

“Well, you’re Arkanisian. I’m Alderaanian.” Speaking nonsense of this kind had always been the weakest of his inherited strengths. “We could run away to Birren, together. Explore a whole new world, just you and me.”

“Modern Birren is about as unexplored as Poe Dameron’s jumpsuit,” Armitage replied, voice now taking on a bored edge. “So stop being an idiot, and get back in the speeder.” But before Ben could even think to move, his expression tilted, eyes narrowed again. “Besides, you were born on Chandrila, weren’t you?”

Though he knew he’d never been anyone’s idea of royalty, and likely never would be, Ben still straightened his spine, set his jaw, tried on his haughtiest mask for size. “I’m still a prince.”

Armitage blinked, only once; his voice was slow even glacial shift. “Of a planet that doesn’t even exist anymore.”

The only real answer to that was silence. Somewhere in the time that followed Armitage sighed, but said nothing more. Ben only watched first the nearing horizon, and then the buildings that began to blossom along its length: the Academy. Once for the training of superior Imperial officers, now become an institute of engineering and design. And it was one of its prodigal students who landed the speeder now, in the courtyard of one of the staff houses. Ben glanced out, saw two slim figures standing at its edge. Even as his heart rolled over, Armitage spoke, though without looking over.

“They called, looking for you.” Armitage’s voice came low, perfectly even. “I told them you wanted to see something more of Arkanis, and that we stopped out on the veld to let a rainstorm pass.” When he glanced over, his eyes were perfectly, startlingly, blue as the sky Ben could no longer see. “Because that’s exactly what happened.”

Swallowing proved difficult, around the spasm of his throat. “Yeah,” he said, barely above a whisper; his groin tightened, his hands rolling to fists upon his thighs. “Yeah, I remember.”

With a glance down, Armitage paused. Then he rolled his eyes, and slammed his palm down on the roof release. “Come on, then.”

Stepping out into the grey low light of later afternoon, Ben found his mother waiting there: small and lovely in blue silk, hair braided and coiled about her head with pearl-beaded silver. “Ben,” she said, somewhere between her senator tone, and that of a mother. “I do hope you haven’t been bothering Armitage.” Even before he could think to reply, she tilted her head, said to the woman at her side, “He’s had rather the fascination with Armitage for some time now.”

Even had the woman not snorted, Ben would have taken a closer look: tall, severe in feature with hair like sharpened sunbeams, she had eyes the colour of blue kyber. With the faintly raised eyebrow, the resemblance to Armitage proved sudden and staggering.

“I’m sure he can look after himself,” she said, and her Arkanisian accent was broader, richer; more Birrenese, perhaps, and she turned those sharp eyes to her son. “Can’t you, Armie?”

A crooked, exasperated grin crossed his features. “Mother,” he said, and nothing else; from the faint flicker of amusement that crossed her face, however, more had passed unspoken between them. “If you’ll see to our…guest, here, I’ll go wash and dress for dinner.”

“More like climb out the back window to escape back to the Port,” she returned with easy suspicion, and raised that eyebrow further. “I’ll have the droids keeping an eye on you.”

With a snort of his own, Armitage turned as if to make his way past the women; he’d not even taken a single full step when Ben spoke up. “Wait,” he said, and those Armitage froze, he didn’t look back. “I need to wash up, too,” he added, and glanced towards the major. “I can keep an eye on him.”

Her eyebrow arched, again; her features were almost as expressive as Ben’s own. “Oh, you will, will you?” And then, without waiting for an answer, she turned to Leia herself. “Why, General,” she said, dry as white wine, “you never did tell me your son was such a daredevil.”

Leia’s own eyes rolled towards the unseen stars. “He’s a Skywalker.” And before anything else could be said, she nodded to her left.  “And he’s getting away, Ben. Surely you have more questions to ask him?”

As he turned, Ben left something like laughter in his wake. It didn’t matter. He’d caught a glimpse of Armitage, disappearing around a corner of the old commandant’s house. It wasn’t much to go on, perhaps.

But it was still enough to go by.


End file.
